After all the talk from England about France’s ‘wounded beasts’ posing a grave threat to their Grand Slam ambitions, the most dangerous beast at Twickenham on Saturday was clad in white with a vivid scarlet splash.

Manu Tuilagi scored the hosts’ only try to pave the way for this third successive RBS Six Nations win before discovering that the lower part of his left ear was hanging off.

Not even that freak medical emergency — which required 19 stitches, two of them internal — could wipe the trademark grin off the Leicester centre’s face, though, as he contemplated another match-winning Test performance.

VIDEO: Scroll down to watch match highlights...

Bloody marvellous: Tuilagi is all smiles at the end of the game despite a horrendous injury to his ear

An hour after his forceful
contribution to Le Crunch-ing of France, Tuilagi’s ear was still
bleeding and threatening to make a mess of his dinner suit as he
prepared for the official post-match function.

He revealed that his playing shirt
which had undergone a colour change around the collar would be kept and
preserved, unwashed, as a souvenir of the day he defied doctor’s
orders to keep England’s championship chariot on track. ‘I swapped the
13 shirt for the other (spare) one and I will keep the shirt covered in
blood to remember this game,’ said the mighty Tiger. ‘It was a great
game to be involved in.’

In the build-up to this pivotal
encounter, France were repeatedly depicted as wounded beasts on account
of their back-to-back defeats at the start of this campaign. In
Tuilagi’s case that description was a literal one after his early
collision with the flying elbow of the visitors’ rampaging No 8, Louis
Picamoles.

The contact somehow left his ear in a
ragged state but England’s outside centre, fuelled by adrenaline, was
unaware of the extent of the damage until after the game.

Making his return to the starting XV, he was in no mood to obey a request to leave the field for treatment.

‘I got up, felt my ear and there was
blood,’ said Tuilagi. ‘It was painful and I think I sparked out for a
couple of seconds. The doc told me I needed stitches so I had to come
off but I said, “Doc, doc, doc, just wrap the tape around it, it will be
all right”.

Winless: France's 23-13 loss to England was their third in the competition

‘I didn’t know it was quite bad but
afterwards I looked at it and it was worse than I thought. The doc was
probably right but I didn’t want to come off. Some of the lads were
coming up to me for a look and telling me how bad it was.’ They would
have had better things to say to Tuilagi in the 54th minute when his try
put England in control of a contest they had struggled to impose
themselves on for so long.

Alex Goode’s high kick into the French
half was taken and set by Yannick Nyanga but Tom Wood managed to kick
the ball out of the ruck and towards the lurking No 13.

The rest was a formality; a simple pick-up in the 22 and an unopposed run to the left corner.

The same corner was also the scene of
France’s only try, in the 30th minute, when Gallic invention and English
incompetence combined to put Philippe Saint-Andre’s side ahead.

Wesley Fofana, rightly restored to his
preferred midfield habitat, had evaded Courtney Lawes and the flailing
Chris Ashton before scorching away from Joe Marler, Ben Youngs and
Ashton again to strike from almost 70 metres out.

Man of the hour: Tuilagi was outstanding all afternoon long

Five missed tackles by England in quick succession contributed to an alarming total of 21 in all, most before half-time.

Lawes was by far the chief culprit as
the big Northampton forward tried to blast opponents into oblivion but
kept letting his targets escape.

While his selection at blindside
flanker turned out to be an unsuccessful experiment by Stuart
Lancaster, it wasn’t alone as a change that didn’t pay off. Dylan
Hartley was recalled to the starting team to add set-piece clout but he
was unable to fulfil that brief.

When Tom Youngs went on as replacement hooker, his impact was immediate and emphatic.

England were decidedly off-key in the
first half and, while France’s vast improvements were a key factor, it
was also a mess of their own making. With Thomas Domingo giving Dan Cole
all manner of scrum problems, the line-out wobbling and tackles being
missed far too often, Lancaster’s side had no foundations to build on.

World-class display: Tuilagi celebrates his try in the second half

In addition, they were unable to
dominate the breakdown as they had done in the previous three games,
with rival captain Thierry Dusautoir acting as a familiar nuisance.

Further back, Owen Farrell’s four
penalties kept the home team in the game but his composure in front of
goal deserted him in all other areas and he became embroiled in petty
confrontations time and again. He also squandered a fine attacking
position with a clumsy cross-kick.

Lancaster tried in vain to play down
the No 10’s excesses, saying: ‘Once or twice he got involved but I don’t
think he had “red mist”. He was controlled and composed.’

Ashton was another unconvincing
element of the Saracens contingent in the back line. But the club were
well represented by Brad Barritt, who served as a hard-grafting foil to
Tuilagi in midfield.

Mr reliable: Owen Farrell slots a penalty

Up front, the heroes were found in the
back row — with captain Chris Robshaw named man of the match, but Tom
Wood matching him carry for carry, tackle for tackle, clear-out for
clear-out.

‘Tom Wood had his best game in an England shirt today,’ said forwards coach Graham Rowntree.

All in all, it wasn’t pretty and it
was far from perfect but in a sense that made this performance ideal for
the management. They have many sticks to beat the players with — plenty
of video lowlights to focus minds and keep feet grounded.

A first
Grand Slam in a decade is on but, without considerable improvements,
England will not leave Cardiff with the top prize on March 16.

Not in the script: Wesley Fofana scored a try for France to put them ahead in the first half